Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog, page 464
August 8, 2016
An Australian Man Won an Island Resort in a Raffle
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
If you enter a raffle, what do you expect to win? A lot of people don’t expect to win anything, but there’s always the hope of being chosen. Any fair raffle will see someone hoping for the chance to walk away with a pie, or maybe some cash, or, if you’re really lucky, a car. But who enters a raffle expecting to win their very own island resort?
This was the case when Joshua, a young accountant from New South Wales, Australia was selected as the new owner and operator of Kosrae Nautilus Resort.
Kosrae Nautilus Resort
The resort was owned by Doug and Sally Beitz. The couple bought the resort a couple decades ago. Looking to cast off the tedium of their regular 9-5 lives, they moved their small family to an island in the Pacific Ocean. The small Micronesian island of Kosrae is north of the Solomon Islands and southwest of Hawaii. All that matters to Doug and Sally is how far it is from the Australian mainland.
As their family grew, the Beitz’s had to reevaluate what they wanted their lives to look like going forward.
In a statement made on the resort’s Facebook page, the family explained their reasoning.
In recent years we have gained 2 daughters-in-law and a granddaughter, and with our parents aging it’s finally time for us to head back to Australia to be with them all.
However, the question still remained about what to do with the resort. Traditional wisdom would have you auction it off to the highest bidder and cash out. But Doug didn’t want his pride and joy going to someone who would see it as nothing more than a cash cow.
Doug and Sally were more interested in finding someone who would love the resort as much as they did. So instead of selling the property off, they followed their son’s advice and gave it away in a raffle.
The Raffle of a Lifetime
Tickets were $49 each. The company initially said that a minimum of 50,000 tickets would need to be sold for the raffle to be profitable.
They quickly changed their minds when they saw the amount of global attention being shined on the contest.
By the end of the raffle, 75,485 people from 150 countries had entered.
All told, Doug and Sally made over $3 million on the raffle. They sold the Kosrae Nautilus Resort for $3 million, but the man who bought it only spent $49. It’s a genius business model when you think about it.
Now the resort is going to Josh Ptasznyk and his friend Nick. Kosrae Nautilus Resort is said to be profitable and fully staffed. It’s not often that a profitable, readymade business falls into someone’s lap. It’s even less likely that that business is an island resort in the middle of paradise. But that’s the reality facing these two young men from Wollongong.
Josh is an accountant and Nick is a financial advisor, so they at least have the basics down. From here, it’s just about meeting with Doug and learning the ins and outs of running a tropical vacation spot. All because Josh saw an online ad for a raffle and decided to spend $49 to enter.
The Many Reasons You Can Rent People Throughout the World
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Believe it or not, in some places, you can rent people! A whole person, or even a whole group of people! And the reasons people are jumping on these services aren’t what you might think.
Takanobu Nishimoto and Ossan Rental
Takanobu Nishimoto had a novel idea four years ago: allow people to rent older men when they need someone to talk to. Now, he’s got a network of roughly 60 men between the ages of 45 and 55 all across Japan.
The idea is to change the image of men in this age range in the country. So for $10 an hour, someone can rent an Ossan, or an “old guy,” and tell him all your troubles.
It’s a service offered for people who may not want to pay a therapist and don’t feel comfortable talking to their families.
One of Nishimoto’s regular clients is a woman in her 80s who rents him to go on walks in the park and talk to him.
I almost became like her son.
Most of Ossan Rental’s clients are women (roughly 70%), but they’ve also rented men out of fishermen who were lonely while waiting for a catch, or a young college student with ambitions to get into show business but didn’t have the support of his family. When all you offer someone is the possibility of a sympathetic ear and kindness, the possibilities are endless.
Rent Mourners
Sometimes it’s not about listening or talking to someone. Maybe you’d want to rent people to make you look more popular. Even after death.
Based in the UK, Rent a Mourner will allow you to pay someone to cry at your funeral. Granted, it’s probably not going to be your own funeral unless you’re seriously planning ahead. But if you’re planning a funeral for a loved one and you’re worried about how many people might show up, rent someone to fill in those pews.
With a “significant amount” of mourners, Rent a Mourner is sure to be ready for all your mourning needs. Their website claims to be prepared to attend a funeral and/or a wake when needed. And their professional mourners will even cry on cue. They work closely with the funeral planner to make sure they’re always on the same page and can remain professional throughout the process.
That’s a relief because the last thing you want is an unprofessional fake mourner at a loved one’s funeral.
Handsome Weeping Boys
Sometimes you don’t want to talk, and you don’t want someone to cry at you. What you want is someone you can cry at. Maybe you even want someone to cry at while you’re at work. Well, there’s a service for that too!
The Tokyo-based company Ikemeso Danshi, roughly translated to Handsome Weeping Boys, will send a strapping young lad to your workplace to watch you while you cry and even wipe away your tears. If you aren’t too keen on crying when he arrives, he’ll even sit with you and watch a sad video to help get the waterworks flowing.
The experience can cost about $65.
So whether you want to rent people to listen to you talk, to cry at your loved one’s funeral, or wipe away your tears while you cry, we’ve got you covered.
Source: The Many Reasons You Can Rent People Throughout the World
You Raised a Big Family? What do You Want, a Medal?
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
The Médaille de la Famille française is a medal awarded by the French government to people who have raised large families.
The name of the medal translates to Medal of the French Family
It was created in 1920 under the name Medal of Honour of the French Family
Reformed in 1982 and 83, the name of the medal changed and fathers were allowed to be given the decoration
Three classes of medal exist:
Bronze is given to parents of four or five children
Silver is given to parents of six or seven children
Gold is given to parents of eight or more children
A family has to be recommended for the award through their local town hall
An inquiry into the family is conducted, and if the report is positive, the medal is awarded
MINI BION
“BIONs” – short for Believe It or Not – is the word we use at Ripley’s to refer to anything that is unbelievable and worthy to become part of Ripley’s lore and collection.
August 7, 2016
August 6, 2016
August 5, 2016
Tootsie Rolls Saved Troops at the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
There’s nothing quite like old war stories. Sitting around listening to your grandparents talking about life in the trenches is a memory most people have. But what are the chances that, when they were invented in 1896, Tootsie Rolls ever expected to become part of those stories?
That’s exactly what happened during The Korean War. Believe it or not, Tootsie Rolls saved the lives of American troops during the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir.
Battle of the Chosin Reservoir
Patriotic Tootsie Rolls by Brandon Burke via Flickr
Troops were stationed at Chang Jin mountain reservoir. The Americans there had taken to calling it the Chosin Reservoir. As you might expect, the conditions left a lot to be desired.
The reservoir temperatures ranged from minus five degrees in the day to minus 25 at night. Everything froze. Food rations were difficult to impossible to warm up, and the artillery shells weren’t going off with any regularity.
The 15,000 troops were facing off against a division of 120,000 men. Strongly outnumbered, outgunned, and undersupplied, the troops weren’t sure what to do next.
One thing was clear—if they didn’t get a supply drop, they were goners. Nearly out of mortar shells, the troops called for an airdrop using the code name they’d established for artillery: Tootsie Rolls.
To their surprise, when the airdrop arrived, it was filled not with ammunition, but with actual Tootsie Rolls!
The Tootsie Roll Mix Up
1918 Tootsie Roll Advertisement
The chocolate flavored candies froze in the inhuman temperatures, but the great thing about Tootsie Rolls is that they’re edible even when they’re frozen.
The sugar boost turned out to be just the jolt the troops needed. Realizing that when the candy was warmed up, it became a kind of putty, the troops were hit with a brilliant idea. The chewed-up Tootsie Rolls would become pliable when warm, but they would quickly freeze again when exposed to the freezing wind.
The soldiers started using the putty-like-substance to patch bullet holes in vehicles, hoses, and other equipment.
With their equipment fixed, the men collected their injured and frostbitten comrades, punched a hole through the enemy lines, and retreated to safety. The men who survived the battle started calling themselves the “Chosin Few” in commemoration of this once in a lifetime experience.
Source: Tootsie Rolls Saved Troops at the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir
Cuddling Up in the Custom Fantasy Coffins of Kane Kwei
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
In This Episode
In last week’s episode, we traveled to Colombia and met limbless artist Zuly Sanguino. Now, let’s go to Ghana—where people “go out” in style!
Today: Fantasy Coffins
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There are plenty of odd funerary customs out there—from Tibetan sky burials to Mushroom Death suits—but, when most of us expire, we retire to a mass-produced wooden box or urn. Not in Accra, Ghana. There, Kane Kwei Coffins handcrafts some of the most unique caskets we have ever seen!
Outside the Kane Kwei workshop in Accra, Ghana where they craft about 300 fantasy coffins a year!
Fantasy Coffins
Each coffin is custom made to reflect the life of the deceased.
Founded in the 1950s by Seth Kane Kwei, this workshop is the first to specialize in abebuu adekai, Ga for proverb boxes, also known as fantasy coffins.
For the Ga tribe, funerals are a time for both mourning and celebration. Believing their loved ones move on to another life after they pass, the Ga make sure they do it elaborately—honoring the dead with brightly colored caskets that reflect their personalities, interests or professions.
Eagle coffins are reserved for people of prominence.
Due to the extravagance (and the expenses associated with it) funerals often take months to plan. This time gives the carpenters at the Kane Kwei workshop the opportunity to create their coffins. One of the most popular designs, a cocoa pod, takes just a week to build, but other special requests can require months of work.
Believe it or not, bodies are sometimes kept in the morgue for years before a Ga funeral.
Source: Cuddling Up in the Custom Fantasy Coffins of Kane Kwei
August 4, 2016
Maurice and Maralyn Bailey’s 117 Days at Sea
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
In 1973, Maurice and Maralyn Bailey survived 117 days drifting out in the Pacific Ocean.
The couple was sailing from Southampton, England to New Zealand
On March 4th, their yacht was struck by a whale and damaged
As the ship was sinking, they collected supplies and some food into a dinghy
They saw seven different ships as they drifted but couldn’t attract any of the ship’s attention; their flares didn’t work
Maurice and Maralyn Bailey were rescued on June 30th
Their experience was put in a book
MINI BION
“BIONs” – short for Believe It or Not – is the word we use at Ripley’s to refer to anything that is unbelievable and worthy to become part of Ripley’s lore and collection.
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